Bamboo — it could be the new cotton, if a Colorado State University expert in textile chemistry has his way.

“People are really interested in natural fibers other than cotton,” said Ajoy Sarkar, a professor in CSU’s department of Design and Merchandising.

“Everything is moving toward sustainability, and bamboo is renewable, and it grows rather fast,” Sarkar said.

“It is also very nice fabric,” he added.

Sarkar is trying to enhance bamboo fabric by making it resistant to the sun’s ultraviolet rays and to odor-causing microbes.

Several Chinese companies are manufacturing textiles and clothes from bamboo, he said, but despite marketing claims, Sarkar and his colleagues found in the laboratory that raw bamboo fabric was not particularly effective at protecting wearers from UV radiation — or at anti-microbial activity.

“So we asked how difficult it would be to impart these properties through a chemical treatment,” Sarkar said. “And that’s what we were able to do.”

Using conventional additives used in cotton fabric manufacture, Sarkar and his graduate student Subhash Appidi bathed bamboo textiles in chemicals and dyes to add antimicrobial and anti-UV properties.

Appidi presented the team’s research Sunday afternoon at the American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans.

“Bamboo is environmentally friendly,” Appidi said in a statement. “Pesticides and other agents are necessary to grow most other natural fibers — there is nothing like that in bamboo production.”

Sarkar said that after he and his graduate student publish their work, they will be seeking a patent on the process they used.

The next goal is to find plant-based natural materials that will impart the UV-resistant and anti-bacterial properties, Sarkar said, to replace man-made chemicals.

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